Part 14 (1/2)
”The pelican on the left is particularly remarkable; but the ducks do no less credit to this artist, who has expressed with such penetration the life of the feathered world, the movements of these creatures, I should indeed say their expression; and he has rendered their physiognomy and character with such profound truth that no other artist can approach Hondecoeter in this respect.”
The Philosophical Magpie, the Country House, and, better still, the modest frame in which the artist, putting aside for a moment his usual style, has brought together lizards, b.u.t.terflies, and sparrows amid shrubs and large-leaved plants, are Hondecoeters of the most admirable quality, whether in frankness of detail, or for the mastery of execution and accent of color.
=a.s.selijn's Allegorical Bird Picture.=--The curious Allegory of the Vigilance of the Grand Pensionary John de Witt by Jan a.s.selijn is a bird picture. Here a great white swan is defending her nest against the attack of a black dog swimming rapidly toward it. Beneath the swan is the Dutch legend The Grand Pensionary; on the eggs, Holland; and under the dog, The Enemy of the State (intended for England). The feather lost by the bird is beautifully painted, and has challenged comparison with Hondecoeter's Floating Feather.
[Ill.u.s.tration: a.s.sELIJN The Swan]
=Eckhout.=--G. van der Eckhout (1621-74) has a Huntsman with Two Greyhounds, painted about 1670. The huntsman, wearing a red vest, is seated on the grayish earth. The general tone of the picture is chocolate or chestnut.
=Jan Vonck.=--Jan Vonck (1630-?), another painter who devoted himself princ.i.p.ally to still life, especially dead birds, sometimes was responsible for the birds in Ruisdael's pictures. His brush work is that of a master; his color is strong and agreeable with a transparent touch.
The Rijks owns one example, Dead Birds.
=Jan Weenix.=--Jan Weenix (1640-1719) was the pupil of his celebrated father during the latter's lifetime; and later he studied still life under his uncle G. Hondecoeter, Elias Vonck (brother of Jan), and Matthys Bloem. He surpa.s.sed his father in his pictures of dead game, one of which hangs in this gallery. His animals--swans, hares, and various birds, arranged with flowers and fruits around sumptuous antique vases--are not so strong in character as those in Hondecoeter's works; but they are very true to nature and have the great charm of harmony and picturesqueness. They richly deserve their original popularity which their wonderful finish and execution have preserved till the present day.
=Coninck a Good Animal-painter.=--David de Coninck (1636-87), who had many affinities with Fyt, also painted landscapes, animals, and birds.
He received the nickname Ramelaer from his fondness for painting rabbits especially. He was quite at home in hunting scenes, two of which are in the Rijks,--The Bear Hunt and The Stag Hunt.
Another painter of this period, Pieter Jan Ruijven (1651-1716), has a fine picture of a c.o.c.k and hens.
=Bosch, an Early Painter of Flowers.=--One of the early Dutch painters of flowers was L. J. van den Bosch (?-1517), who painted with a transparent color and a light touch. He treated fruits, flowers, and insects with sympathy and truth. He often represented flowers in vases; his insects are so minute that they have to be examined with a magnifying gla.s.s.
=Delff's Poultry Seller.=--Pictures of this school, however, do not abound in the Dutch galleries till we come to the artists who lived a century later. The first of these who appears in the Rijks is Cornelis Jacobsz Delff (1571-1643), a pupil of Cornelis Cornelisz. Delff was renowned for his pictures of still life. He is represented in the Rijks by The Poultry Seller.
=Other Still-life Painters in this Gallery.=--Other still-life painters born in the sixteenth century, who are represented in this gallery, are Ambrosius Bosschaert (1570-?), Pieter Noort (1592-1650), Pieter Symonsz Potter (1597-1652), Adriaen van Utrecht (1599-1652), and Hans Boulengier (1600-45). Bosschaert has a picture, Flowers, dated 1619. He had a son of the same name who also painted flowers.
Of Pieter Noort little is known beyond the fact that he painted still life, and especially Fish, as in the two pictures here signed P. van Noort.
P. S. Potter painted on gla.s.s and was the manager of a gilded leather establishment at Amsterdam. His model was Hals. Besides portraits and landscapes, his preference was for still life. The Straw Cutter and Still Life (signed and dated 1646) are worthy of attention.
=Two Pictures by Heem of Utrecht.=--Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-84) of Utrecht was a son of David de Heem, so famous for his _dejeuners_ spread with game, oysters, lobsters, fruits, wine, china, gla.s.s, and silver. Jan inherited his father's tastes, and much of his talent, as is evidenced by two pictures in the Rijks. One shows flowers and fruits of natural size; and the other represents a table on which are a cup, a gla.s.s, and a vase of wrought silver loaded with fruits.
=Greville on his Style.=--”At Antwerp, under Seghers, he enriched his palette and learned the art of composing a delicious harmony by setting flowers and fruits and gla.s.s and silver vases on an Oriental table-cloth. To the most minute exact.i.tude and almost microscopic details, he added the most brilliant coloring and an unfailing taste in the arrangement of his flowers and still life.”
=Pieter de Ring.=--A picture of a table covered with blue velvet and spread with lobsters, oysters, bread, fruit, etc., is typical of the work of Pieter de Ring (1615-60), one of De Heem's pupils, a Fleming, who spent his whole life in Holland, and was noted for his picturesque arrangement and fine execution.
Hans Boulengier has a flower piece signed 1625. He painted still life, _genre_, and sometimes ”fantasmagories.” Little is known about him.
=Still-life Painters in the Latter Half of the Seventeenth Century.=--A generation later this school was in full blossom. Pictures of fruits, flowers, and dead game, by artists who flourished in the second half of the seventeenth century, are fairly plentiful.
Abraham Hendricksz van Beyeren (1620-74) painted with fine composition and strong color breakfast pictures in the style of David de Heem, and delighted in portraying fish as in the Rijks example.
Cornelis Brise (1622-7-) painted portraits; this gallery possesses one of his pictures of flowers, signed C. Brise, 1665. On the wall beside it hangs another flower piece by the brush of Elias van Broeck (?-1708).
=De Snuffelaer.=--Otto Ma.r.s.eus van Schrieck (1619-78) was nicknamed De Snuffelaer (the ferreter), by the Dutch art colony in Rome, because of his frequent country walks to discover new plants, insects, and reptiles as models for his compositions. He painted with wonderful finish, good drawing, and truth to nature, as may be seen in his Insects, Lizards, etc., here signed O. M. V. S.
Jacob Marrel (1614-81) has a flower piece signed and dated 1634. Among other masters in Utrecht, Frankfort, Brussels, and Antwerp, he studied with J. D. de Heem.
=Kalff, a Good Painter and a Brilliant Talker.=--Willem Kalff (1622-93) was the pupil of Henry Pot, and as soon as he left the master he abandoned his manner, choosing for his subjects vegetables, fruits, kitchen utensils, and sometimes handsome vases. Houbraken says he spent whole days before a lemon, a beautiful orange, and the agate or mother-of-pearl handle of a dessert-knife; and the vessels of Holland never brought home a single sh.e.l.l, the strange form and splendid colors of which he did not copy.
Unlike many of the Dutch painters of his day, who spent most of their time in the tavern, Kalff was a man of charming and distinguished manner and a brilliant talker, and he possessed a witty and cultivated mind.
His friends would spend the entire night listening to his conversation, and when he died from an accidental fall from the bridge at Bantem, the poet Willem van der Hoeven wrote a eulogy in which he said that Willem Kalff ”knew how to paint golden vases and silver cups and all the treasures of opulence, but no treasures could outweigh his merit, for he had no equal in his line.”